1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus, an image processing method, an image processing program, an image processing system and an image processing control apparatus. Particularly, the present invention relates to an image processing apparatus, an image processing method, an image processing program, an image processing system and an image processing control apparatus that select an apparatus for performing an image processing on an image.
2. Related Art
When an electronic flash is used at capturing an image, a certain appearance could occur sometimes such that the pupils of a person are shown in red or gold. Such appearance is called red eye or gold eye, respectively. If the red eye or the gold eye is occurred, the captured subject is not shown well. Therefore, varies image processing methods for correcting the red eye or the gold eye to a natural color for the pupils have been proposed. For example, a method for performing a red eye correction processing has been disclosed as, for example, in Japanese Patent Application Publication No.2000-76427 (1). The method including the step of: causing a user to designate a target processing region including an eye image of which color is defect. Thereby the red eye correction processing is performed on the pupils based on the hue, the saturation and the lightness of the designated target processing region.
Additionally, a method for performing a red eye correction processing has been disclosed as, for example in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2004-145287 (4). The method includes the steps of: adding information to the captured image, such as an electric flash information, an Ev value, a shutter speed and a diaphragm value; and performing the red eye correction processing on only the image determined as that red eye is occurred. Moreover, a method for extracting a face region has been disclosed as, for example, in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2000-137788 (2). The method includes the steps of: extracting a candidate region including the face of a person from an image; dividing the extracted candidate region into a plurality of small regions; and collating the amount of characteristic of the plurality of small regions with a preset pattern of the face region. Further, a method for extracting a face region as, for example, in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2000-148980 (3). The method includes the steps of: extracting the face region of a person from an image; extracting a region being a candidate for the body of the person when the color density of the extracted face region is corresponding to a predetermined threshold value; and evaluating a probability that the extracted region is the face region by using the density and the saturation of the face or body region. Additionally, a method for extracting a face region has been disclosed as, for example, in Application Publication No. 2000-149018 (5). The method includes the steps of: extracting a plurality of face candidate regions from an image; and evaluating a probability based on the degree of overlapping the plurality of extracted face candidate regions.
In the inventions of the above described related art (1)-(5), however, when a predetermined image processing is performed on an image for each plurality of image processing apparatus, it is impossible to determine which of the plurality of image processing apparatuses preferentially performs an image processing on the image. Therefore, each of the plurality of image processing apparatuses could perform an image processing on the image regardless of the system resource condition of each image processing apparatus such as the load status of the image processing apparatus. Moreover, in the case that the plurality of image processing apparatuses are connected to each other through such as a network, when a first image processing apparatus performs an image processing on an image and transmits the same to a second image processing apparatus, the second image processing apparatus could perform an image processing which is preset in the second image processing apparatus on the image. In this case, the second image processing apparatus could perform the image processing the same as that performed by the first image processing apparatus on the image, so that an image processing different from that intended by the user could be performed on the image.
Thus, the advantage of the present invention is to provide an image processing apparatus, an image processing method, an image processing program, an image processing system, and an image processing control apparatus which are capable of solving the problem accompanying the conventional art. The above and other advantages can be achieved by combining the features recited in independent claims. Then, dependent claims define further effective specific example of the present invention.